methode

‘ADDER ZONDER GRAS’

The Dogtroep was a steered collective. The collaborators have a lot of freedom within their disciplines, but this means it is necessary that only one person is responsible for the decisions. And with regard to the artistic choices that was my task. Below follows a report of my method of working. It’s a personal and intuitive process. In order to get a complete insight in the working method of the Dogtroep, one of the members of all different disciplines involved should actually write a report.

On this page you will find a description of the method of working

The invitation

At the beginning of 1996 the Dogtroep was approached to produce the theatrical reopening for the renovated Academic Hospital; an institute as large as a small town situated in the centre of the city of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands.

This invitation fits perfectly in the artistic views of the Dogtroep and we decide to accept it.

The location

We begin our preparation for each performance with a visit to the institute or organisation that has given us the commission, so we can look together for the best location. I examine the hospital from the inside and the outside and choose for the exceptional main entrance as the location. It is a gigantic high-tech glass façade. In front of this façade is a space of 50 metres broad, 40 metres deep and partly 14 metres high. Behind the glass façade is a reception hall were at some parts you can look as far as 100 metres.

I immediately fall in love with the place. I always want every project to be a completely new project and this place has got everything I am looking for. But in oazg_wieger_schaatst.jpgrder to make a production at this specific location the main entrance and all the services have to be temporarily relocated and the street must be closed for traffic for six weeks. The board of directors and the city council agree to this and the Dogtroep will make a huge opening spectacle.

The team

We put the team together more than half a year before the opening. The place is huge, so with the actors I look especially for physical contrasts: tall and small, old and young and fat and thin. Beside the regular freelancers of the light crew I want special support from an artist who works with huge light projections. We must give the place its own character because there is a lot of image pollution behind the glass façade, such as a bar, shops, a lift shaft and art objects. And apart from our own band we will also compose a choir of hospital staff. I also need a large group of extras to be able to cope with the enormous space.

Script

With Dogtroep I never start working from a theme or a story. The performance must grow from the obsessions and ideas of the team at the location. Based on all these ideas I write the script.

A Dogtroep script is never a linear story. The script exists of one main story line combined with several other story lines, which are all enacted at the same time.

I decide very late during the making process how the exact script will be. I do this on purpose because otherwise the fantasy is ruled out. For me the making of a performance is an intuitive process during which everyone must be very flexible and open. It is about the merging of individual ideas into something new.

Of course I do have a number of general ideas in my head. I have a feeling about the kind of atmosphere I want and about the intentions of the performance. I want the audience to hate the main character but with humour. It also has to be magnificent and monumental and in first instance it should have to do nothing with hospitals.

Preparation

Everybody gets a letter with and a photo. A month later the “complete” team watches the location for the performance several months ahead. In this way the first ideas can come up and the technical crew knows already which basic adaptations they have to make.

There are auditions for the choir. An empty wing of the hospital is prepared to accommodate us. We apply for all the necessary permits and the publicity campaign starts.

The making proces

We make a magnificent spectacle for 1100 people from scratch in only four and a half weeks. The process is comparable with the working of a pressure cooker. We draw up a tight schedule – which is sacred – because if you want to make a huge performance in a short period of time the whole organisation must work like clockwork.

Brainstorm week

The material for the perform”ance must come from the team and the location. That’s why I want to know everyone’s thoughts and ideas. At the same time I must steer the process because they all must know what the approach is going to be. I do this through brainstorming sessions. In this way I can create the framework and at the same time challenge the collaborators because I want this process to be an artistic challenge for everyone involved and I want to make use of everyone’s fantasy as optimal as possible. During the brainstorming sessions I gain an insight in how people think. I also can stimulate the co-operation between different disciplines and people, because combinations of fantasies usually produce something special. I have no fixed way of brainstorming and prepare the questions or assignments always very shortly in advance. I decide according to the moment, the place and the people.

Day 1

Now I am stanCastding with the team before the glass façade. In the meantime they are closing the street for traffic and a few last cars drive past.

First brainstorming session:

Question:Write down the opening we are going to make. Describe what happen before and behind the glass façade. Think selfish. Your work and qualities must come first. Take the qualities and physics of the actors into account. Think of the positioning of the stand, which will be placed over the full width directly across the glass wall. Reckon with the sunset. We start when it is still light and end in the dark.

Here some ideas written down shortly and cryptically:

A group of extras break through the glass wall.

Cover the street with an air cushion with sand and clinkers on top and the street can move.

A battering ram breaks from the hall through the wall of glass.

Freeze glass with nitrogen.

Play with the letters (ACADEMIC HOSPITAL GRONINGEN) on the roof.

Make a little house of water.

Paint the pedestrian crossing over the rest of the street.

A man on fire.

Day 2

I usually make couples for the brainstorms. By bringing different people together I hope to get better and more original material.

Questions for brainstorming session with the inventors and designers.

The point of departure is to invent monumental changes that are practically possible.

Invent a completely unexpected monumental change. You should not see it coming.

A enormous air cushion which suddenly inflates and covers the complete faccedil;ade.

A waterfall of fire from the edge of the roof.

Whiten the glass faccedil;ade with yoghurt, which drips along the windows, then suddenly hose it down.

What does the world behind the glass look like. Make up a great change in that ‘behind world’.

An aquarium behind a film of water that drips along the window.

A world of gears and wheels.

Think of a change for the floor/street.

Wash away the floor.

Volcanoes of paint.

The pedestrian crossing over the whole street.

A floor that can turn over.

Role out the street as if it were a role of carpet.

Make a floor of ice.

Invent a change for the glass faccedil;ade.

A haze of water mixed with nitrogen and everything is covered with icicles.

Paint the glass and leave open spaces.

Break the window with a battering ram from the inside.

A big bullet hits the window from the outside at full speed, but the window does not break.

Questions brainstorming session with the actors.

The point of departure is to make use of the differences you (the actors). Invent short, clear, simple actions and events. Don’t make up stories.

Make up 4 scenes with the mean woman and each time a different actor (I want Wieger to play a mean woman).

Make up 3 scenes with the glass wall and every time a different actor.

Invent a scene in which your body comes out best against the body of someone else. It is about shape, movement, locomotion and pace.

A lot of very short and useful scenes are invented.

Day 3

We start the day with a visit to the hospital museum. A world preserved in formaldehyde and beautiful sections of the human body. The rest of the day everyone works at the favourite ideas from the brainstorming sessions. There is a lot of testing and calculating. What is possible? And what isn’t?

I discuss all kinds of ideas with the costume department. After that I work with the actors at the short scenes. I am not looking for a story but for the energy and power of the actors. Which actors/characters belong together. Which couples work best in this enormous space.

At the end of the day everyone (actors, designers and technicians) only show the successful results to each other. It has no use to take time for unfeasible ideas in this pressure cooker process. And everyone is used to be very critical towards themselves.

Day 4

Everybody continues to work at facilities or continues with experimenting. I do brainstorming sessions with a small team. I know there are visual gaps in the plans and I just don’t have enough material yet to make a good performance. Many of the ideas are only a pure reaction to the high-tech façade. And we are in danger that the spectacle becomes only a kind of funny decor.

Questions brainstorm four.

My goal is to find solutions for the visual gaps.

Make up a change in or an addition to the existing architecture through which the meaning of a place can change. This change could be a prolonged action.

Play with the letters on the roof.

A car arrives, it breaks down and its presence changes the street.

What can be done to make the existing structure of the street more explicit.

A jungle of traffic lights and traffic signs which suddenly shoot up.

Enlarge the scale.

The letters ACADEMIC HOSPITAL GRONINGEN. What can we do with them? A list with results.

Someone writes a letter to someone downstairs.

What are very mean things you can do without using violence.

Hang someone very high and make him jealous / help someone to cross the street and then step back when a car turns up / trip old people.

Slowly freeze someone.

Dag 5

This is the last day on which large visual and technical objects can be made up. A day filled with sketching, doing tests and finding out if what we have invented is really possible. The production assistants work at full speed. They call all over the country to get the information they need.

I work with the actors and give them all kinds of assignments. Today I am especially looking for the connections between the visual ideas and the actors. Which person belongs to what image.

Two weeks of building

Day 6

During the weekend I made a first rough choice from the hundreds of ideas. It is an elimination race. From now on we do not make up any new images anymore. Now everything must be realised.

In the method of working I use, I first start with just inventing things and then I make more and more choices. The process is like a funnel. I take more and more decisions and make adjustments. For my choices I take the following criteria into account.

Has the idea got its own dramatic quality.

Is there a change or a development in the idea.

Are there enough possibilities to use the idea for playing.

Does it strengthen the environment where we play.

Is it technically and practically possible to realise it in two weeks.

The selected visual ideas that are going to be executed.

Make a floor of ice with nitrogen (very cold) and steam (very hot).

A game with the letters ACADEMIC HOSPITAL GRONINGEN.

The ‘bomb car’ (a very small car that was originally used to transport air missiles) will pull lampposts from the ground.

A big iron ball smashes against a window but cannot break it.

A long car that appears to be a 16-metres long ladder so that someone can climb to the letters on the edge of the roof.

Find a way to make the glass untransparent. The idea is now a curtain of streaming milk that changes later into water so that you can see it again.

The extras will be clones of the leading actor. All clones will get his face as a mask.

A very big inflatable bag (53m long and 14m high) that must fill all the space between the pillars and the glass. It has to be possible that the bag can be filled very quickly and emptied extreemly quickly.

A long battering ram that pushes through one window from the inside, with someone on it. The post will put someone far in the area where the performance takes place.

A little rain house. A little house made of tubes, which can completely change into water.

Two huge monumental mobile objects in the behind world.

Casting of the actors.

WIEGER (leading actor as a mean woman) and JAN + JOOST (the old men). They ‘live’ on the location.

WILMA (fat woman) and THIERRY (strong man) are a couple. They will arrive.

PHILIPP AND UDO (young men who look alike in their movements) will enter and disappear from the area where the performance takes place. They have a more abstract role and are dressed like the other stagehands.

CSILLA, REBEKKA and RIET (small strong young women, each with a different colour of hair). They are a goal-oriented team of killers’ who try to kill each other.

The music.

The CHOIR will only arrive halfway. They will sing three choir pieces.

The FOUR-MAN-BAND (with all-round musicians) is responsible for the music.

A little hand organ with music rolls. In this way it is also possible for an unmusical actor to still play an instrument.

The division of the places where the performance will take place.

Central in the faccedil;ade there will be a ‘garden’. Partly inside, partly outside.

Outside along the pillars there will be a catwalk at a height of 10 metres. Partly for the actors, partly for the technique.

Inside, over the complete broad of the glass wall there will be a catwalk at the height of 3 metres. Mainly for the clones.

There is a location for play up on the roof with the letters.

The making of the script

Day 7, 8 en 9

This is the period during which I make clusters of the hundreds of ideas. That is also the first intuitive rough line for the performance. At the moment I am, as the scriptwriter, the only one who has an idea of the whole performance. My wall is completely covered with little papers with all kinds of ideas and scenes, divided into categories. Now the puzzling, thinking and writing starts until everything has become a beautiful unity.

In between I am spending a lot of time in the big workplace where the builders are busy with the realisation of the monumental images. I must know what all the technical consequences are. I also discuss possible scenes with the actors, listen to the music and look at the first costumes. And the whole time I check if everything matches with each other. If not, than I have to make adjustments.

Day 10

End of the second week. Many ideas have been dropped for dramatic or technical reasons, such as making the glass faccedil;ade untransparent. I also have made a first division between which actor will work with which objects and where. From now on the construction can be adjusted to the scenes. The script starts to take shape.

Day 11, 12, 13 en 14

During the weekend the stand, for 1100 people audience, has been built. It makes the place more intimate and the acoustics have improved. But the striped plastic roof of the stand reflects in the glass wall and the street has changed into a draughty tunnel. At the end of this week all large objects must be ready and function. The actors work with a coach at the further development of the scenes while I work at the script. Making a performance in this way is very literally work in progress. I check-steer-correct-write at the same time.

I work from the images with their meanings and their changes. They form the basis of the story’. I work with a spreadsheet because it is not a linear story. A scheme in which horizontally are all the actors and technicians and vertically the scenes and events. This is possible because we do not use text and the actors and the images are of equal value.

What you cannot read is the actual content of the acting scenes. This will develop during the rehearsal week.

Day 15

We round off the last day of the third week by watching all together to the presentation of all big things. Most of it is finished but it is just as a new pair of pants that is still full of pins. Everything works but it goes in fits and starts.

The rehearsal week

Day 16

In the weekend I finished the script. Version 1 is ready. I explain it step by step to the different teams: the actors, the technicians, the light and the music department. Tonight we will have the first technical run-through. This is the complete performance with everything and everyone and we only stop when something technical really does not work out.

It is difficult to put a Dogtroep performance into words. Mainly because there is no linear story, but a complicated whole of meaningful images, actions and events, music and light that are composed into a series of scenes at different levels. Not only the actors, but the technicians are also visible. They wear an inconspicuous costume but their role is just as important as those of the actors. They act and operate the objects and effects. It is the combined action that makes a performance work or not.

The main line of this performance is the story of a murderous family that cultivates human parts of the body. One day an unknown couple arrives. The husband and wife are, unintentionally, separated from each other. He is on top of the roof and she is downstairs with the family. The mother tries to chase the wife away but she fights back. The mother is driven into a corner and her own products turn against her.

A simple story but the performance is much more complicated. Besides the main line there are the story lines of the daughters, the grandfathers and two little men, as well as the architecture, the light, the music and the technicians.

The technical run-through takes more then three hours and asks the utmost from everyone. But now we all get an idea of the whole story for the first time.

Dag 17

I make a lot of changes in the script (Version 2) and make a list of cues. Many actors are not in the position to see large parts of the performance. They depend on a sign or action of someone else before they have to enter or can start with their action.

Because we do not use dialogues but tell a story by means of actions, images and music a lot of attention is being paid to the precision of those images.

And the lists with jobs in the workplace are only getting longer instead of shorter.

Dag 18

The whole day there are rehearsals of the individual scenes and events. Mostly only first with the actors and the technique. And when everything goes well the music is added. It is just as with dancing. First you have to know the steps, only than you know how to dance.

In the evening we have the second technical run-through. Many of the problems of the day before yesterday have been solved.

Dag 19

I change the script (Version 3) again. I change the order of two scenes. I now know that it works well. This is the moment on which I change from mainly scriptwriter into being mainly director. Only know I can fully concentrate on the actors. I work on scenes and changes of pace because the constructed world must come to life.

Dag 20 en 21

Rehearsals during the daytime, now straightaway with music. I try to make a unity of all the different playing styles and images.

In the evening there are technical run-throughs. Because the performance is a complex organisation, the run-throughs are actually the best rehearsals. We do more run-throughs than usual because the extras and the choir are an A- and a B-group. One day one group, the next day the other group. It goes reasonably well. Not surprisingly since the cast consists in total of 80 members.

Final rehearsal.

Day 22

After one day off, today everybody gets the final version and the cue-list. I discuss all changes with the different groups. There are several more rehearsals and the complete area where the performance takes place and the stand are made ready for the audience.

Try-outs

Day 23

It was a full house, 1100 people on the stand. My heart was pounding! The whole thing worked although it still went in fits and starts.

Day 24

Another day during which adjustments and improvements are being made. And in the evening one more try-out with the B-group.

Opening evening

Day 25

The whole hospital is buzzing. Today is the day. A royal visit, a lot of VIPs, a huge dinner and than the opening!

Everyone has played fantastic. It was a beautiful opening. We will play the performance 18 times for a total of 20,000 people.

Description of the Performance

You don’t describe a Dogtroep performance. You must see it, feel and smell it. Thousand things happen at the same time. The different images and events tell together the story. The real story is only told in the head of the spectator because everyone in the audience sees something else. Still I have tried for only once in my life to describe a performance.

The cast:

Wieger = Mother, Riet = Little White One, Csilla = Little Red One and Rebekka = Little Black One. They are a murderous family! They undermine each other constantly and take pleasure in it. They have two elderly uncles who never get out of their chairs. Jan and Joost.

Wilma and Thierry are a very happy couple on a trip.

Udo and Philipp are dressed as the technicians but they have an abstract acting role. They can enter with all kinds of things and leave again.

The show:

The stand already opens an hour for the beginning of the performance and all that time the audience can watch the family behind the glass that is having dinner or watch the roof where two technicians are working with the letters ‘ACADEMIC HOSPITAL GRONINGEN’.

The performance starts exactl”y at 21.30. It is not dark yet but the sun has set. High on the towers on the side of the faccedil;ade you can hear gongs. One of the technicians arrives in a very small cart. He starts to pull lampposts from the ground and in this way he dims the light. In the background the family clears the table. When the lampposts and the little cart leave a small music band starts to play a bit on the side.

Little Black One comes outside with a flowerpot. Mother has instructed her to put it outside, but she does not do it according to Mother’s wishes. Mother knocks angrily against the window. Little Black One looks round, stumbles over, falls and breaks the flowerpot. She tries to stash it away with her feet but Mother comes outside, pulls a gun and shoots and kills her daughter. The breast of Little Black One explodes and she drops dead. Her little sisters, Little Red One and Little White One laugh. Mother goes inside again.

A Husband and his fat Wife arrive with a very long cart from the right. He cycles and she looks happily around. Suddenly she sees the body of Little Black One. This gives them a fright and they put a cover over her. At that moment one of the technicians slips on top of the roof. He screams, tries to save himself by grabbing one of the big letters. The ?S? breaks off and he falls down. There he hangs on a rope with the letter S in his hand. The letter falls.The Husband wants to help him. He puts the ladder against the facade and climbs up with the letter. In the meantime Little White One and Little Red One do a ?stroke and punch’ dance in the revolving door. And the old men are playing ping-pong on the table without standing up from their chairs.When the Husband is almost up the ladder breaks off and he falls down. The Husband dangles dangerously from the edge of the roof and has difficulty climbing back on the roof. But the technician comes down quickly along the rope and disappears. The Husband cannot get away anymore and he must stay up there.

In the meantime Little Red One has appeared on the catwalk on top with an iron ball. The fat Wife is walking lonely in the street when Little White One comes outside with another flowerpot. Again Mother taps against the window and warns her to be careful. On that moment Little Red One throws the iron ball down. The ball skims along Little White One and smashes against the window. She gets a scare and drops the flowerpot. Mother comes angrily outside and chops off one of her daughter’s hand. Mother buries the hand in one of the flowerpots with soil that is standing in their little ?garden’. From the stump of the arm of her daughter, Little White One, spouts water. She spouts the water in the flowerpots with soil, staggers and falls down.

The fat Wife, who has taken a little table and chair out of her suitcase, she fetches her little hand organ and starts to play. Two technicians enter, rowing in a bathtub on wheels. They stop with the Wife dance to her music. But she looks up longing to her husband. The Husband uses the letters (Academic Hospital Groningen) on the roof and writes her the message IK MIS U ZO EN GA ONDER (I miss you so and go under). The Mother comes outside with a chair on her back in which one of the old men is sitting. She puts the chair down, pulls a bell. The two technicians stop their dance and the Wife stops the music. Everyone has gone. The Wife is alone again. She sits on her little chair and throws bread on the street to feed the birds or is she perhaps trying to lure her husband to come down? But no one eats her bread so she picks it up again from the street and eats it herself.

The Mother comes outside again, this time with the other old man also in a chair. She tightens a rope between the two necks of the old men and hangs out her just cleaned socks.The Wife looks sadly up to her husband and reads his new message: EN NU ANDERE ZAKEN (and now other affairs).Behind Mother in her ?little garden’ a hand starts to grow from the flowerpot. Suddenly an alarmclock goes of next to the corpse of Little Black One, who is still lying under the cover. She turns back the cover. She opens her eyes and stands up! Complete joy. A complete singing choir appears. Suddenly Mother sees the growing hand in her flowerpot. She shakes the hand. Everyone in the choir sings at the top of their voices. Mother gets enthusiastic and starts to dance and everywhere around hands start to grow. And behind her, inside, grows a large tree of moving artificial legs. While Mother dances wildly a tango, Little Red One and Little Black One put Little White One, their unmoving little sister who has no arms, on a bed. But the bed appears to be a grill. The little sister is lit and they turn her around on the spit. The burning sister starts to thrash about. It is a cacophony of images.Suddenly Mother stops dancing the tango and sees that her girls are grilling Little White One. She puts out the fire. The sisters look dismayed. Mother now also grabs the other hand of Little White One, which is grilled in the meantime, and break it also off! The little sisters look hungrily at the hand. Mother divides the hand between the three girls who eat it greedily.

In the foreground the fat Wife burns a little fire. Her tea-kettle starts to sing. Mother walks towards her and starts to badger the Wife. The little, fat Wife does not want to let it go and challenges her. Mother (big and strong) accepts the challenge giggly. Mother pulls a traffic-sign from the ground and the fat Wife pulls a post from the bus stop out of the ground. They cross their ?swords’. From the edge of the roof large columns of smoke pour down. The two women fight while the complete area where the performance takes place is blanketed in a layer of fog (the floor of ice is prepared by technicians and causes the fog). The three daughters cheer their Mother from the sideline. But the fat Wife wins. Mother is a bad loser and while the audience cheers the Wife, Mother puts an empty barrel over the Wife, so that she can’t move anymore.

Mother feels if her socks (on the wassingline between the two necks of the old men) are dry. She puts on her clean socks. The Wife tries to climb out of the barrel and she manages to do this. She looks up to her husband and reads the new sentence, which he is changing just at that moment: (E)EN U(I) IS CHRONISCH (MAAN)ZIEK (and your are chronic (moon)ill). Sadly the Wife plays on the little organ. In the meantime Mother has put on skates and skates to the music on the icefloor. It starts to snow and it is romantic winter scene. Every round Mother pulls the bell. When Mother pulls the rope again Little Red One, who is standing upstairs, suddenly jumps down and Mother flies up (contraweight). Mother does not understand how she has ended up on the bridge with her skates on. And she is looking in panic for a way out.

Little Red One has landed in a very big elastic cobweb. Her sisters pull on ropes as a result of which she is launched every time. They torture her in this way. Little Red One cries very loud for her ?mama’. The sisters join in and while they torture her they all scream ?mama’.Indoors, behind the glass, the behind world starts to come alive. Wheels are turning and from a trapdoor Mother suddenly appears. Mother walks towards the window and taps against it. The girls stop their torture and run to their Mother. But there are more and more mothers. The girls panic. An innumerable number of mothers hit hard on the glass of the huge glass faccedil;ade. Suddenly there is the real Mother who tries to force her way through all her clones that slowly fill the glass wall. When Mother taps against the window to her daughters the clones imitate her. The window of the real mother breaks and she is thrown out headlong (the battering ram) and put in the middle of the street.The clones get angry and start to hit increasingly harder on the window. Mother and the girls ?blow up’ a great air cushion that covers everything as a protection against this violence. In one minute everything suddenly has become black and silent.

The world has changed completely. A soft haze of water spouts over the complete area where the play has been performed. And it is silent.When Mother notices that the fat Woman is still around and has even made a little house of tubes around her, she walks angrily towards her. She hits with an iron bar on the little house. The little house starts to rain (all surfaces are shaped by a very thin curtain of rain). Than the black plastic starts to move. And from under the gigantic air cushion crawls one clone. Mother and daughters panic completely and run away. The only ones who have not moved yet during the performance are the two old men, and everything seems to pass them by completely. The old men watch the family leave. And when they are gone they jump up and run into the other direction.

The fat Wife looks at the clone that is still standing there. He is walking towards her. She is afraid. The clone takes off her dress. Then appears the body of a man. The clone takes off its mask! And ? it is her Husband.The air cushion splits open. The air escapes. The cushion deflates in a few seconds and sinks on the ground. The glass wall has completely changed. The enormous hospital hall is illuminated with a beautiful projection of lines and surfaces. The Husband kisses his Wife. The red letters of the Academic Hospital Groningen blink. The husband and the wife walk into the just reopened building. Fade-out.

Epilogue

It is only possible to make such an enormous spectacle in a short period of time when you work with a solid and varied team of talented people and use a clear method of working. My working method is based on the method that was invented by Warner van Wely, who founded the Dogtroep in 1975. His work has got a lot of following all over the world.